How can I rejoin a Windows machine to the domain without losing user data if trust relationship on machine was broken

Question

Long story short. A new machine was added to our domain with the same machine name as a pre-existing machine.

Rather than receiving an error from the domain when this was being done, it simply replaced the older machine. As a result, the user is no longer able to login to the domain on the old machine.

How can I rejoin that machine to the domain without losing that user's data/configuration?

The quick solution seems to be unjoin the domain using the local admin user on that machine and then rejoining it. However, I believe this will create a new user when the user logs back in meaning they'll lose everything they have setup such as desktop icons and programs installed only for that user.

How can I get around this problem?

Solution

Remove client from domain, rename client, rejoin domain. The user account and configuration should be there unless there's something else going on.

Comments

[Windows Ninja]

Thanks, I will see if it is that simple. When I remove the machine from the domain it will ask for domain credentials to do so. Will there be an issue with leaving the domain since there is no current trust relationship?

[Mitch]

You can give it the credentials of your domain account (assuming you can add and remove from the domain with that account). The user account stuff will still be there since the configs etc are based on the user's domain account and not the machine name (unless they logged on locally).

[TheCompWiz]

The users' account information is actually mapped by the user account in the domain's SID. (you can see the profile mappings in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\{SID-OF-USER}) So, removing/re-joining the domain won't make you lose anything.